The Mission of Under Crank Productions

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Get started at wealthfront. com The client was paid one thousand dollars for their testimonial, cing conflic of interest outcesary. three point three percent,ase APY as of january thirtieth, twenty six is representative a variable and earned onund swept to program bank.zo point six five percent new client boost for three months on up to one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Direct deposit one thousand dollars a month andund investing account for zero point five percent increase Cash account offered byalthront brokerage LLC member FinNA S IPC not a bank Instant withdraw subject to coitions fees and eligibility requirements may apply to certain checking features of cash account You are now listening to the Someone's favorite Productions podcast network Hey everybody. this is Chris Senko, the social media mananager for Deaf Crocodile. and today I am very excited to be talking with Ben Modell from Under Crank Productions. Ben is the musical composer and performer for the upcoming Deaf Crocodile release of the Jan S. Kolar silent double feature, including Arrival from the Darkness and Staint Wensceslas Ben is performing the music, composing the music for Sain. Onceceslos as well as some of the short films that are included on the release. And I wanted to hear a little bit about nds approach to working with composing for silent film because that is One of the main things he does, especially with under crranked production. So Ben, thank you for join me today Thanks for having me on. I' really I'm really glad to have this opportunity. Oh, my pleasure, my pleasure. So then I guess you know, we have a local theater, the music box theater and we have an organist who plays I Yeah, Yeahah, Dennis Scott are you you're're in Oh yeah yeah, Denis is it Denniscott Dennis Sott Yeah, yeah. Yeah, Denis Scott plays Ogan at our place. And so whenever I go see silent films, an awful lot of times playing the organ, although we have other, you know, composers that come in and so for. But you know, I don't really know other than really enjoying it, I don't really know what goes into something like that. So especially with this, this is a release. this isn't just like alive in the moment thing. So Ben, how do you approach Creating music for a new silent film you're working on. Do you have like a certain process like when you got? St. Win' last in from Thennis and Craig. like what's the sort of the first thing you do to sort of prepare yourself? For a recording because recording a score playing a show are two completely different animals. So the process is similar in some ways and different in others So for typically any film that I'm going to a company whether it's a home video release like the Colar films or the things I have coming up for under crane productuctions the Marion Davies's film, the cardboard lever, the Ar buuckle that we're working on or what at whatever it is. U O if it's a show like the things I have coming up this summer or this fall I will ideally watch the film once ahead of time so that I can make mental notes or written notes about Anything that is sudden U or a quick shift and I don't mean like a surprise like we say Jump sca, that sort of thing, but sometometimes the language, the storytelling language of Silent film will go from one scene to another without a tidy wrap up and a fade and then a fade into the next thing or fade into an expository title that then introduces and then we fade out and fade into the scene Um, sometometimes we'll just cut. And so If it's a huge shift in mood, I need to know it's coming. And so I will watch o, oh, okay, now we're in back on the farm Okay, so I will make a note what are the two or three things that happened before the cut And so while I'm playing and sometimes this is happening with a recording, I'm watching, okay, he sits at the table and he looks at the newspaper and now we cut. So that way The idea is to stay ahead of the film a little bit I learned my craft when I was in college, which is when I started playing for films from a man named Lee Irwin And Lee had been a movie organist in the nineteen twenties. and like most organist from the nineteen twenties who played in cinemas himself John Mury, Bob Vagh, Gall, Carter, Ros Ro. they eventually wound up working in radio But Lee also went to France to study composition with Nadian Bouinger. And I think his approach to film accompanent was a little bit more, I'd say either contemporary or in line with what we expect today from a film score rather than carry on the scoring traditions of the nineteen twenties, which were a little bit different. So Lee often would tell me it was important to stay ahead of the film, just a hair. Because if you're lining something right up, it's not only is it right on the nose, but the audience is aware you're doing it And the idea is to disappear So I'll make notes of sudden shifts, places where character's theme or a love theme or a main theme for the film would apply. I'll come up with these themes ahead of time or sometimes while I'm recording or while the show is happening, then I bring them back as needed, but not too much you There's a tradition in Silent film scoring originally that I think was born out of stage melodrama and whereere anybody who shows up, you play their theme. It's like Peter and the Wolf. if you know what that is Of course. Yeah and it kind of continues today. if we cut to a shot in outer space and we see a spaceship and we hear Darth Vader' them, we know he's coming and we're going to You know, we're going inside his ship. Y. and the Harry Potter films work the same way. So but I like to do it sparingly again so you're not aware of So I'll watch the film, make notes. make some musical motif compositions. If there's a piece that is required, someomebody sits down at the piano and plays something and we cut to a shot of the sheet music. Even if it's obscure by Glly, there's going to be one person who knows it and will ask, why didn't you play fill in the Bank? So I will look that up and it's Sometimes it's easy to find. sometometimes I have to find a YouTube video of an old seventy eight and transcribe it. And sometimes it's just so obscure. I just create a piece that sounds like it would be called blah blah blah blah and Hopefully that one person who actually knows what it is isn't going to have a hard time with it. So the idea is to prepare also to be in the moment when The lights go off in the theater or when I start recording U I've for home video recording. I've developed a practice that is It's similar to a show except I because I know It's being recorded and For some reason with Home videoideo, the soundtrack is a little bit larger than it is in a show The screen is smaller the sound is bigger. So I'm it may not be that way for the viewer, but to me It's more important and the pressure' on a lot more So It's still what I consider U I think the term composition and performance fits But I also consider it improvising until it's right I don't think of the way I compose mostly is that Rather than well, I've found a way to eliminate the step of writing it down note by note. Okay. That's what I was wondering. Yeah You know, u I'm composing into the recording software and then I can punch in wrong notes or if there's a few bars I'm not happy with, I can fix them it's just easier and because I've been doing I've been accompanying Simon Films for so long Although I do do some scoring for small orchestra I have about nine or ten scores that are available for short comedies and animated cartoons, some of which have been re workked for concert band The process of stopping and writing it down and it just it's so laborious. Yeah Um it's not as much fun as it as it might be for some other people. So previewing the film preparation, making notes and then seeing what happens. Okay. So when I talk about composition and performance during the recording session, I'm I may have some preconceived ideas But I also am open to anything that happens while I'm watching the film. And I have a background that includes improvisational comedy performance. and that's something I studied in the late eighties with a group called the First Amendment. Okay. They were they're not famous like upprise Citizens Brigade or or Second city, but I think they were one of the best and they were around and then I started with the East Coast version of the Groundlings, which is called Gotham City improv. Yeah. And that practice U of making an assumption instantly and committing to it, but also being willing to change on a dime really open up my improvisational scoring techniques a lot. And so I'm aware that Something can happen during a recording session or during a show that I was not planning that is way better than anything I had worked out ahead of time, which is again the hazard for me with composing where it's written down and then trying to stick to it. I, uh I'll show Keatons one week. to students are school kids and that's sort of my go to short for peopleeople who have never seen a silent movie And I have an orchestral score for the film that I composed And I have set themes and set music for it And one day I was playing for it at a school and I I don't know, it wasn't a choice The music I had composed for scene three, I started playing at scene two and vice versa and I was like, Oh, you know, this actually works better I gott to go fix fix the orchestral score, which I haven't. but U There there's so there's these two things going on at the same time Uh One other part of my process for home video scoring is I have a video projector set up. Okay I for many years, I was doing my scoring with the TV set And it was Fine, but I always was aware. of the disconnect between what it felt like to record a score for home videoide and what it was like to play a show. And I thought What if I could replicate that scenario physically U And it turns out getting a video projector and projecting an eight foot wide image on the Well my living room was pretty darn close. because Silent Film is Purely visual All the information is on the screen. And so watching a small U you not only as a viewer later on, you may miss some things, but for the journey I have to go on fila companies, I need to see the faces big I need to see the reactions If there's wide shots like there are with some of the battles in Saint Wensislaoss or any of these films The analogy I often use is that Sometimes it's like Driving somewhere you've never been without GPS at night and So you're not just looking at the yellow line and oncoming headlights, you're looking all over the place for that that gas station someone told you to look out for. There's a park over here, but there's a fork, but don't take the Take the right on the fork and then there's just roundabout But which round, you know, so you're not just going straight, you're looking I'm watching all over the frame, even if I know the film to anticipate so that I'm ready U So when somebody bursts through a door pulls a knife out or throws something and hits them in the head. I'm already ready. for it. So U those are some of the mechanics of of of the process U So there are these like I said, there's preparation, but there's also the willingness to go along and see what happens And I had that happen on some of the short films that are that are extras on the set where I thought one thing in previewing the film ahead of time And then not really actually being sure what I was going to do to make it work. and There's a film called, I can't remember the full title, but it's Polycarp, somethingomet something, something something. Yes, yes, yes Now For silent film fans and historians You may know the name poolycarp because it was a character name. of our comedian who made comedy shorts in France along with Poollyidor Ziggoto, Oisim Rubin Little Chrisia, Sarah DuMell, and there's so many of them. We make these little seven minute short comedies Now, the polycarp film that's here is nothing to do with that. Okay. So I thought, okay. and also the filmmaking of it is very It resembles what we might think of as amateur cinema So I'm watching the film and it's got a very, very, very basic storyline Storytelling visually is different And I really wasn't sure that the film was going to really work and I thought, oh gosh, I'm going to have to work extra find a way to make it work and strangely enough hit play, I hit record. and I put my hands on the keys and started playing and something happened in the recording session almost immediately where I thought Oh, this film actually works and it's working a lot better than I thought it was going to I could I can't tell you what it was I did Once I finish editing a track, I don't go back and listen to it. I don't watch it against picture. I'm like, great. ono the next thing there's another one There's a couple of other shorts that were like that. There's one where There's a couple of people who A couple of guys who fancy themselves as detectives I think is that the lady with a small foot or something like that? There's a there's that one and there's another one where I thought Oh, this is u I'm not really sure what's going on here. The filmmaking Even though it's from the nineteen twenties, looks a little bit earlier And by that, I mean There's less to the imagination, there's less expression, there's less expressiveness is a much more proscenium based cinematography and times with earlier films. There's more that has to be done musically to bring emotion and drama and tension to the storytelling. And again, with these These couple of films Again, I had some ideas, but I also knew something might happen and in both cases, I just started playing and I thought, oh, I don't know what whatever I'm doing is working and not only patting myself on the back for the music, but I felt like the film is working I consider myself in service of the film and the filmmakers and the people who made the film So one of the things I'll try to do In some cases is to understand the mentality or viewpoint of the person directing or their style. Chaplin has a point of view. Eisenstein has a point of view. Fairbanks and whoever his directors are there's a sense of fun and whimsy even though There's drama in action. that's so I'm on their side. I'm working for them when the lights go out U So I'm not familiar with Mr. Koholar, but I'm watching these films And Ive I Sometimes people ask me, well, what do you do with a bad film or whatever? That's I don't make that call I have to make whatever I'm playing for work for a contemporary audience and not just play what was played in the nineteen twenties or just go, well, it's, you know, it's kind of weak Well, you have to make it work. I'm I'm here to Uh These films or help get these films or support someone who's getting these films Back on to screens for people so They'll enjoy them. and and especially in a case like these to discover them. So U That was the fun actually of some of these films that I thought, oh, the film is this kind of a film. I'm not sure what I'm going to do And it turns out Oh, this actually works better and Something instinctively. I mean, I've been playing for films for over forty years and your instincts just just kick in at some point. You can't even explain it. There's this flow that happens The picture comes into my eyes, into my brain O my hands, I hear the sound that I'm playing and then it cycles through again and again in an almost transance like state, and you can't really explain You talk to anybody who does improv comedy. they get off the stage and what were you thinking? I don't know. somebody' say started happening Wh where we're in north we're in north U you know, we at the North Pole And and this happened and that happened and somebody walked in as Willie Lowan, well, you don't say there's no way this could be possible. You go for it and make it work. And you don't think about the process. So it's almost instinctive in a way you're not just matching music to what you're looking at Um or mirroring, you know, the The thing I like to say is that the music needs to sound like it's coming from inside the film so you can forget about the composer and the accompanist and enjoy the film I pulled up the spreadsheet and yes, you were right. The lady with the small foot is the name of one of the shorts. Yeah. And Polycarp's winter adventure was the other one. Yeah, yeah. And it's just Polycarp is this guy who asks gets up the nerve to ask a girl out on a date Yeah to go sledding or something and another guy intervenes And that's it and That is enough plot for, you know, a split railer as we call it. a half a rail that's six, seven minutes long. It's a full two reels and I really wasn't sure. How is I mean, watching it in dead silence on a computer monitor, I thought, oh I don't know and then And when I was recording, it just sort of came to life and I was able to find levels emotionally and and psychologically to make make it work No, I love, I love hearing that because I wanted to make sure that I didn't presum because I assumed that there was a large amount of improvisation involved, but I wanted to make sure that you weren't going to be like, well, excuse me, I actually compose every single second of it and you know I consider it composing It's it's you know, a lot of times willll say Ohh, you're just winging it You're playing whatever And, you know U It's like the way a jazz musician works. You're developing constantly I' musicical say no one's calling Keith Jerry Wing. Right exactly. you're and you're not Yeah you know, just just seeing what happens there's a there's a musical vocabulary that gets developed not just of melody and melody composition but of underscoring technique plus You never really get to finish a melody. Sometimes you do But it's sort of like, you This is an extreme example, but if you Turn on Tom and Jerry and close your eyes or Bugs Bunny with Carl Stallling on Bradlely at MGM. You know, those things, you know, you get through seeven beasts, and then we're onto something else or so they will happen and You know, you don't finish the piece so being able to stay loose that way and stay open to impulse. So U It's not it's just not preomp it's not preomposed and written out but little black dots and little lines over everything It can be done that way, but U Lee Irwin was an improvisor He studied with an organis named Andre Marshal who' one of the great improvisational organists in France and most most of the people who were film organists were' either improvising or using music that they themselves had come up with or or a mix of that the ones that I that I knew of who work into the the two thousands So it is a way films were accompanied. There were certainly ensembles and and and soloists who couldn't improvise who worked with all the huge libraries of stock music that was published for film accompaniment. in the nineteen teens and twenties I know you do a lot of comedies and a lot of, you know obviously American stuff. Was there anything specific about storytelling or the filmmaking style of Kolar or, you know, the sort of Czech filmmaking that presented any novel challenges with regards to it. Were there any like because like you said, with like Eisenstein, I'm sure you have to really be thinking in a different compositional framework than with Chaplin and so forth. Was there anything like that? fromrom like a check point of view or just a bullar point of view. W the exception really of the St. Lences Los feature U a lot of the shorts that I that I scored had this look as like they had been made much earlier a much simpler understanding of the visual storytelling abilities The book I wrote and which was published last year called The Silent Film Universe focuses on What I believe is the core Yeah. appeal and core element of silent film as it worked and was a hundred years ago and is today, which is that There are things that are left out and that we without being aware it happens, are filling in constantly. And it's the trusting of the filmmakers to not show you everything and to suggest things cut to a close up of something, cut to a close up of something else And then we as viewers, put these things together to either infer some information or an emotional state or something that someone is thinking without having a title card saying So and so remembers the time they went and visited the doctor So there's a lot more where the information is coming to us from the screen in a lot of the short films U, but there's a maturity in the storytelling that kicks in, especially with the S. Win's Ls and maybe it's just by virtue of the fact that it is a late silent and by that point U between is Cohar's experience making so many films and the fact that the film industry had you know, really just sort of solidified itself as an entertainment medium and you can see as the expression goes. you can see the money is up on the screen production values, right costoming the sets, the number, the sheer number of people who are in the film there's a shift in that film. So there wasn't necessarily a directorial style that I picked up on so U for the shorter films, I was mainly U working out finding ways to make the films land best way possible for an audience of today. to honor the work that Colar put into making these Colar and the entire behind the scenes staff and the performers as well U and didn't have to work quite as hard with the feature, although interestingly in the same way As it happened with the shorts, I had watched the film twice actually and to prepare to follow the story, to know what was coming, when the battles are, how long the battles are going on so I can pace myself. U I know where to go and know when the battles end. So o when this boulder falls off and does whatever, I mean, that's not what happens in the film. Okaykay, that's then that's your cue to start to wrap it up And again, I had a couple of preconceived ideas about what this film was and there's a lot of posturing about who is in charge and fighting and we're going to take over. No, we're going to get this beforehand. and What wound up happening while I was recording is the musical state I was in was something that was a lot more Um meditative and spiritual in a way because u ultimately It isn't just about the way say Alexander Netsky is a lot of fighting and battles take over territory. there is this He's he is It becomes at the end, Sain. Wuen's loss, right U Right. And so there is this spiritual journey that this whole thing is about that isn't just taking over land and killing people so we can take it over And so that was something that that happened. againg while we were quote unquote rolling that I thought, oh, this is actually working better than what I thought maybe I was going to do And I think, I think supports better what this film is actually about and is not just a series of battles being fought I'm so glad you mentioned that because yeah it's such interesting story that keeps sort of preparing for battle, but like his Once his los is sort of inner journey is what can we do that's not this battle? L you know, how can we ameliorate this? How do we sort of diffuse this or this and by the end, like is, you know, it seems like the forces are kind of marshalled against him. But but yeah, I definitely sense that sort of There's that sort of ache in the score that I think really suits well. I'm gl you f. So likeike I said, I haven't seen the finished version and I just I recorded it cleaned it up, punched in things I wanted to fix and sent it off. And but I'm glad it worked for. I mean that's the goal. The goal is U it's it's a weird thing for a film composer to want people to forget about them and their music But for me, it's more important that we enjoy film because you you know, peopleeople are probably not familiar with ck silent film at all anyway. So you're going in already thinking, well, what is this? Is it going to be good? Am I going to like it? It's chezckch. amm I going to understand it And etcetera, et cetera. and you want to not only put people at ease, but help them getet into that trance that transl state where is this flow of information that happens between you and the screen and then also the music. That's what I called the Siment Film universe that only exists The same in film it is This is it's experiential and it draws on your right brain and what we consider the right brain more than any other form of cinema. That's great. I think you've answered all my questions. I guess before I go, I just kind of wanted to ask you if you wanted to plug under Crank Productions a little bit, tellell our listeners about what undernder Cranks about and what you're working on. I I as someone who watched a whole lot of screwball comedies this past winter, I am very, very excited about your silent Everet Edward Horton collection coming out. Yeah. Well, Undercrank productroductions started out about twelve years ago and inadvertently. I didn't mean to become a home video label But it was Basically, it started out with a stack of sixteen millimeter Printince of comedy shorts that I had where I had either the only known copy or one of the only known copies outside of an archive that would never really issue the film rightight I thought to myself is Nobody can seize these, then they're still lost and R at this time, Amazon's mananufacture on demand arm, which has now ceased create space. began I knew about film editing, video editing scoring DVD authoring, etcetera, et ccera I did a kickstarter, Kickstarter itself had only been around for a couple of years U I raise enough money to put out what is called a accidentally preserved volume onene. It's a term I came up with for these films that made Th these sixteen millimeter rental prints were made in the nineteen twenties and thirties for the home use market Nobody thought, oh It's a good thing we're doing this on safety film because the nitrate prints won't survive. And these will be the only copies. That's why I that these were accidentally preserved the disc happily Yeah acc And the the project went well. It was released. I was very fortunate to get a very nice review from Dave Kerr at the New York Times when he was still there and reviewing home video releases And it's just sort of gradually snowballed from there basically H Actually, my second release was something called the Mishaps of Musty Suffer, which is a comedy serial from nineteen sixteen and ' seventeen which was my first co branding arrangement with the Library of Congress And so most of what we've been releasing the last twelve years and we're about to have our I think, our thirty seventh Blu ray or DBD come out is The unhereralded gems of the silent film era. movies you've never heard of, but you should These are the movies that people went to see every week while they were waiting for the next Doug Fairbanks film They're all the big, you know, that there are certainly the ten pole of films of Chaplain Keaton Lloyd, Mary Pickford and on and on. and I'm happy for you know, Kino Lorber and Flicker Alley and Criterion and the San Francisco Film presreserve and on and on milestone films to do the big titles. And there's still plenty of Simon film that survives. I'll come across something like when Kightood was in Flower with Marian Davies or the Horton shorts were like Wow, this is this should really be available and get it out there. So the horn insurance that you mentioned Eward E Horton We know him from movies in the thirties and the forties, but he had been a stage actor and that character and personona that we know him for was already worked out on the stage. He had been in the theater. and in California and entered movies in the early nineteen twenties In nineteen twenty seven, Harold Lloyd decided to make onene film a year instead of two and hisis idea, I think, was in order to keep his crew busy, sign Horton to do a series of two real comedy shorts and eight of them were made The nitrate, camera negatives and prints survived when Harold Lloyd died. they were given to a guy named Richard Simonton who had been Lloyd's Archivist. Simonon got funding through the Library of Congress and the newly minted AFI American Film Institute preserve these things to safety. And they've sat in a ball since the nineteen seventies But they look amazing. and he's hilarious. And they're made by, you know, if this was there was a movie poster today, I would say from the people who who from the people who made the kid brother in Speedy. It's the same crew Um, rightight The We've now we're about to release our seventh Marion Davies film She made so many great comedies and light dramas and light comedies in the nineteen twenties, and they've just been out of the public eye forever U, for reasons, you know Most film programmers will go with things that are known in order to draw an audience. And so taking a deep dive into the lesser known stars It is something that programmers may not go for. It may be something that some of the larger home video companies won't necessarily put their attention to. This is one of the reasons that silent Westerns are almost invisible on home video I don't count the things that are out from oldies. com and alpha video where you're happy to see an image And you, you know It's great for people who want to just want to see it, but we have now done two blue rrays of restorations of film historic Tom Mix. and Tom Tyler and we're talking with Another film accompanies I've worked with before by doing another Disco Western. So we're we're filling out the landscape by making these films available in quality presentations with digital restoration where possible, good scores, whether it's me or folks like Andrew Earl Simpson or John Mersalis I U We're looking at the long tail It's a matter of this should be available for anybody Who is interested John Ford is super famous and a lot of his films are are well released, but his older brother, Francis got him into the business and from whom he learned a great deal is completely overlooked. So we have a disc of Francis Ford film There's a d disisk set of films directed by Frank Borzgi made in nineteen twenty one which only exist because They were produced by cosmopolitan productductions Hs company for Marian Davies' films, but Cosman Pllen also had Borzgi under contract for a year or two And because of that, Marion held on to her films and willed them to preservation Th exist and these earlier Borzgi films, know his films from the thirties No Street Angel in seeventh heaven, you can see things like back pay and um Yeah I'm looking the name with the other one, but you can you can see early, you know, six years earli, o He was already doing this and these Porzigki things So The idea is to find something that deserve to be available present it in a quality package with quality artwork so you know just looking at a one and a half inch high image on Amazon or deep discount. o, this is going to be a quality withlease And then working with fans We pretty much A majority of our projects are funded by fans through Kickstarter I like to say that as opposed to saying funded by Kickstarter or Kickstartter didn't do the work This is us for reaching out to fans Um, And some people have referred to this as pre ordering, which it is not a pre order is you are buying ahead of time something that's already finished with these projects You know that when you pledge your twenty five bucks, when you do finally get your disc You made this happen. You see your name in a crawl at the end You take you can feel a little ownership that Hey, you know I help make this happen. So Uh This is, you know, this is what what we're we're we're doing and we've been just so thrilled with the the level of support by fans U critics, bloggers, what have you, as well as archives after doing so many projects with the Library of Congress, we are now working with archives like the UCLA film and television archive where we restored Oh Roland West's the Bat, which they had saved and preserved from Nitrade thirty five years ago. films from the IFilm Museum Occasionally we'll get a short or two from the Museum of Modern Art and other archives But by by making these quality projects and bringing light to some of these obscure files that deserve to be better known think both fans and folks in the community u see that what we're we're doing is we're we're that it is possible A to Find an audience for films that are not Sfety lastast. Yeah, I was going to say we had just such a an incredible response to our first pair of silent films, the Henry Galeen, Alrowni and the student of Prague. and I'm hoping we're going to have a lot of enthusiasm around arrival from the Darkness and Stain. Wensisls. and just saying to the audience you know, a lot of Deaf crocodiles you know, fan base is believes the same way, like it's not about, you know, like you said, you know, chucking out a million, you know, burn on demand, you know, releases. It's, you know taking the thing that you care about and polishing it into a diamond. So I would say Daf Crocodile fans, if you like the silent films that we're doing. and Ben's work on them. Absolutely check out underndercrank Productions And and where can they do that Is it just under crank Productions? Undercrankroductions. com U During June I don't know when this is going to air. All of our titles are on about fifty percent off at deep discount Pict choice and movies Unlimited and June is our anniversary month, so that we've got a big sall there and they are dedicated There are dedicated pages to the undercrank line on those three vendors, but you can always go to undercankroductions. com And I think U that what Def Crocodile is doing is it's the same sort of thing. They're there is a need and an interest in these niche titles. U collectors U who have something, want to see more of what else is out there And I think that what Def Crocodile is doing for all the things that it puts out and including this release And Clearly, nobody else has thought to release Cck Silent films. What a great idea from This is the whole thing H You know, somebody asked me recently why why do you think physical media is so important? I said, becausecause all the cool stuff is on physical media you know, and everybody, everybody gets it, you know, streaming is so narrow and even Even the boutique streaming channels still cycle things out every once in a while And so making these films available For the audience who wants to see them is so important. and I think it's whether it's things that under Craig is putting out or Def crocodile